10 everyday truck layouts

Bob Behounek has lettered loads of trucks. In his 50-plus years of sign making, he has probably lettered thousands of them. You could even say he “wrote the book on truck lettering”—SignCraft published his book Trucks! in 1998, which is unfortunately no longer in print.

“I averaged about 400 trucks per year,” says Bob, “and most of those were done in the days before computers and vinyl. It was just how you did it—you made a pattern, got your brushes and lettered it. They were in and out in a day or less. Most of these trucks were done in the Chicagoland area and some were done in Wisconsin.”

Bob’s approach to truck lettering was based on traditional, sound layout principles, and the results were layouts with loads of appeal. The lettering and individual copy blocks were framed by plenty of negative space. Words that related to each other were close, often even overlapping. There was plenty of contrast in color and weight.